^y_.<'-L:t^.^'';,iii-;,i,^:r'.y'l-': > '. 






63 

|J;opy 1 



THE STATE AND ITS UNIVERSITY, 



AND 



OTHER SPEECHES 



BY 

HON. TENNENT LOWIAX, 

OF MONTGOMERY, 

IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF ALABAMA. 

1901. 



^ 



PiJb ^0m^iimtni^ 0^ Ih/ Xnih^x. 



I 




THE STATE 



AND ITS UNIVERSITY, 



AND OTHER SPEECHES, 



BY 



HON. TENNENT LOMAX, 

OF MONTGOMERY, 



IN THE COiNSTirUTIONAL CONVENTION 
OF ALABAMA, 3901 



<<ji 






MONTGOMERY, ALA,. \ r^ 5u^^ S 

THK BROWN PRINTING CO., PRINTERS AND BlNft^JRl*. o(^ * ^.•'' 
1902. •••♦■■M-.*- 




^'^h:/ 



F. 
Author. 






THE STATE AND ITS UNIVERSITY. 



Justice to the University — Long Delayed — Should 
BE Meted Out at Last. 



The Constitutional Convention having under consideration the re- 
port of the Committee on Education — 

Mr. Lomax said : 

Mr. President : I desire to offer an amendment in the 
nature of an additional section. 

The amendment was as follows : 

"Amend the ordinance as reported by the Committee 
by adding thereto the following Section : 

"Section — . After the raitification of this Constitu- 
tion, there shall be paid out of the treasury of this State 
at the time and in the manner provided by law, the sum 
of not less than $36,000 per annum, as interest on the 
funds of the Uniyersity of Alabama heretofore covered 
into the treasury, for the maintenance and support of 
said institution ; provided, that the Trustees of said Uni- 
versity, at any time they may deem it proper for the best 
interests of the University, may abolish the military sys- 
tem, or reduce said system to a department of instruct- 
ion, and that such action on the part of said Trustees 
shall not cause any diminution of the amount of the an- 
nual interest payable out of the treasury for the support 
and maintenance of said University." 

Mr. Lomax : I desire to say to the Convention that the 
purpose of this section is to fix in the Constitution the 
minimum income of the University. The section provides 
that there shall be paid annually not less than |36,000. 
Under the law, as it stands to-day, the University receives 
and has received since 1896 |34,600 from the State, (|24,- 
000 being the interest on the debt that the State ac- 
knowledges it owes the University), and |10,000 being 
embraced in the annual appropriation bill since that 
year, making |34,000 ; and the purpose of this amendment 
is to fix the amount in the Constitution so that hereafter 
the University shall not have to come to this Capitol 
every two years, or every four years, as the case may be, 



and beg, and lobby, for an appropriation of $10,000 in 
order to prevent two or three chairs of ithat institution 
from being overturned by reason of the withdrawal of 
that appropriation. For seventy years in Alabama the 
State University has been the shuttle-eock of legislation, 
and the itime has come, as we believe who love the Uni- 
versity^, that it should be relieved from that position and 
placed upon a permanent and a firm foundation. I de- 
sire to explain this matter to this Convention, although 
most of them are perhaps familiar Avith it, and to say 
that I do not ask this to be done on behalf of that insti- 
tution as a matter of charity. If any man will study the 
history of the University and the origin of its endowment 
he will see at once that its income ought not to be the 
subject of legislative caprice. When the State of Geor- 
gia ceded to the United States the territory of Missis- 
sippi, there was reserved, in the act of cession, one entire 
township of land to be devoted to the erection of a semi- 
nary of learning. When the State of Alabama was ad- 
mitted into the Union, the enabling act of Congress 
which permitted her admission, reserved, not only the 
township which the territorial grant had reserved, but 
another township of land in addition, to be devoted to 
the erection of a seminary of learning. Two entire town- 
ships, seventy-two sections, in round numbers forty-six 
thousand acres of land, were reserved for the establish- 
ment of what is now the University of Alabama. The 
State of Alabama, in its first Constitution, accepted this 
provision of the act of Congress, and prescribed that two 
townships of land should be reserved for the establish- 
ment of that institution; and, by an act of the Legis- 
lature thereafter, these lands were authorized to be 
sold at the minimum price of |17 per acre. A simple 
calculation will show to this Convention that if that 
forty-six thousand acres of land had been sold at |17 
an acre (and much of it was sold for more) there 
would have been realized from that sale the enormous 
sum of about |700,000. After that was done, after 
this land had been granted, after it had been reserved 
and the reservation accepted by the people of this 
State, and the sale made at the price named, the men 
Avho bought the land, many of them, failed to meet 
their deferred payments. Under any rule of law 
which has ever existed, upon the happening of this 



condition, the paj'ments which had been made upon 
the land would have been retained by, and the land 
itself would have revertted to, the seller; but, under acts 
of the Legislature of Alabama, those men who had pur- 
chased that land and who had failed to make their de- 
ferred pa3^ments, were excused from the making of the 
deferred payments, and the land was authorized to be 
re-valued at |9.00 per acre, and more than |150,000.00 
were thus taken from the funds of the University. 

After that had been done, after this fund had been 
scaled down by that means, the State went into the 
banking business. It had no capital to establish a bank. 
It authorized books of subscription to be opened in 
every prominent town in Alabama, and the people of 
Alabama refused to subscribe to the stock of that bank ; 
but the State had the money of the University in its 
hands, and by the use of more than $100,000 of the 
funds of the Universit}'', it established its State bank. 
For a number of j^ears that bank prospered and grew 
rich. It earned more than 12 per cent, upon its invest- 
ed capital, and by an act of the General Assembly of 
Alabama only 6 per cent, what was earned by the bank 
was paid to the University, and 6 per cent, of what was 
earned on the University money was charged to the 
profit and loss account of the bank. 

Mr. Fitts: I move that the time of the gentleman 
from Montgomery be extended so that he will have half 
an hour in all to make his argument, which will re- 
quire some time. 

The President: It is moved that the time of the 
gentleman from Montgomery be extended twenty min- 
utes. 

Upon a vote being taken the motion was carried. 

Mr. Lomax: I thank the convention for the indul- 
gence. Now, Mr. President, I am not without author- 
ity in making that statement. I desire to say to this 
Convention that, subsequently to the appointment of 
the Commission to investigate the condition of affairs 
between the University and the State, Dr. Wyman, the 
President of the University, found, and very recently, 
among some old papers, in a deserted building, in Tus- 
caloosa, a report of the President of the State Bank, 
and that report shows (and I have a copy of it here) 



e 

that, during one of the years in which that bank pros- 
pered, and during several years prior to its dissolution, 
while the funds of the University earned 12 per cent., 
only 6 per cent, of the amount was paid to the trustees 
thereof. Taking |100,000 as the amount of the Uni- 
versity funds invested in that bank, and calculating the 
interest on it at 12 per cent., and deducting one-half 
of that amount because of money paid to the University, 
and taking the balance that is left, (the State of Alabama, 
on that item alone, from 1837, the date of that report, up 
to the present time, owes the University more, a great 
deal more, than is acknowledged in the statute, which 
pays 8 per cent., or $24,000 as Interest on the University 
fund. 

Now, the State Bank finally failed. The University 
funds were lost in the failure of that bank. A number 
of years elapsed, and then they had, what they pleased to 
call, a settlement with the University. In the acts of 
1843, I believe it is, that settlement was carried into 
an act of the Legislature and that Legislature enacted 
that the State owed the University |250,000, and agreed 
by jthat enactment to pay the University 6 per cent, 
interest on that |250,000. This trustee of the funds 
of the University — the State of Alabama — sold the lands 
of the University at |17 per acre, aggregajting more 
than 1700,000 ; this trustee which, by its own act, had 
wiped out the debts of the people of this State to the 
University, amounting to more ithan |150,000; this 
trustee, by its Legislature, said to the Board of Trustees 
of the University, by its act, "You must accept this or 
nothing," and yet men stand here and talk about a 
settlement between the State and the University — ^^it was 
a settlement but such a settlement as that you would 
make with a highwayman, who, at the point of a pistol, 
demanded your money or your life. It was denounced 
at the time, by that splendid man and patriot, Isham 
W. Garrott, who gave up his life for the State in the 
great war for Southern Independence, as the boldest and 
most unheard-of robbery that had ever occurred. But 
was it a settlement? Let us see what subsequent legis- 
lation has done. In 1859 or 1860, another act was 
passed. There was still a controversy between the State 
and its University. The University still contended that 
the State owed it money, and in 1859 or 1860 (and I 



have tlie act here) another act was passed in which the 
State of Alabama, by the solemn enacitment of its legis- 
lature, declared that it owed the University |300,000, 
and would pay 8 per cent, per annum on that amount 
so long as the military discipline was maintained there. 
If ithe settlement of 1843 was fair, and was in truth a 
settlement, wh}^ did the State in 1859 raise its debt from 
1250,000 to P00,000, and its interest from 6 per cent, 
to 8 per cent? 

But let us go further. In 1896, a lot of gentlemen in- 
terested in the University came here to present the 
cause of the University to the Legislature. They came 
with the '^Vppeal of the Alumni'' of that institution, 
which was prepared by that noble old Roman, James H. 
Fitts, and asked the Legislature of Alabama to right 
the wrongs of her great institution of learning. Mr. 
Pitts, in that appeal, demonstrated the fact that the 
State of Alabama, in all justice and all equity and all 
right, owed the University more than |2,000,000. A bill 
was passed by the House of Kepresentatives by a vote 
of 50 to 31, which acknowledged that debt, and agreed 
to pay the University 3 per cent, interest per annum 
upon that amount. That bill was killed in the Legisla- 
ture by executive interference, and the miserable pit- 
tance of |10,000 a year was put in the appropriation 
bill as partial compensation for the defeat of that 
measure. Then a commission was appointed on the 
University debit. The Legislature, as the agent of the 
State, the same agent which has made two settle- 
ments theretofore with the University, which, b}'' their 
own action, they acknowledged to be wrong, appointed 
a commission to inve&ftigate its affairs. That com- 
mission met. A majority and a minority report were 
made from it. I do not question the integrity, or the 
high purpose, of the gentlemen who composed the ma- 
jority of that commission. They believed they were 
rightt, but their action was based upon the principle that 
the State of Alabama was not the trustee of this fund, 
but that the University was one arm of the government 
cf the State, and that any losses that might have come 
by reason of its funds being deposited in the State 
treasury could not be charged against the State, be- 
cause she was not a trustee. And upon the theory that 
the University was an arm of the State government, 



and that the State was not chargeable as a trustee, the 
majoriity of that commission decided that no debt was 
due. Call an institution an arm of the State govern- 
ment when for seventy years the State government has 
crippled, and injured, and impaired, the usefulness of 
that arm by strapping it down and holding it fast by 
meagre appropriations ! However, the minority of that 
commission, a man who stands as high as any man that 
ever lived in Alabama, Dr. Eugene A. Smith of the 
University of Alabama, reported, and demonstrated by 
his figures, that, taking the report of the majority of 
this commission as true, and upon their own figures, 
ithe State of Alabama was then indebted to the Univer- 
sity in the sum of more than |800.000. These reports 
went to the Legislature; they w^ere printed and laid 
upon the desk of every member, and vrere referred to 
the Committee on Education of the Senate and House, 
and those commijttees reported to the Senate and House 
as follows: 

^'Your Committee on Education to which was refer- 
red the majority and minority reports of the commission- 
ers appointed in pursuance to the joint resolution of 
the tw^o houses of the General Assembly, approved Feb- 
ruary 18, 1897, beg to 

''Repont that they have had the same under consider- 
ation in connection with the reply to the majority re- 
port which was filed with your committees by the Exec- 
utive Committee of the Board of Trustees of the Uni- 
versity and representatives of the Society of the Alumni, 
which accompanied the report. And your committee 
further 

"Report that, ovving to other duties, it has not had 
time to investigate ithe matters of law and fact con- 
tained in said reports and reply sufficiently to come to 
any eonclusion that is satisfactory to your committee. 

"Your committee (the Committee on Education of 
the Senate, concurring) recommend that the said ma- 
jority and minority reports and reply, be spread upon 
the journal of the House for the information and con- 
sideration of any future Legislature." 

So that that Legislature, following w^hat had been 
done theretofore, admitted that the question of the in- 
debtedness of the State to the University was still an 
open question. The friends of ithe University contend 



that the State owes the institution that vast amount of 
money. But we do not ask you, gentlemen of this con- 
vention, ito acknowledge that debt. We ask you simply 
to put us in a position where we will be removed from 
politics, where we will not have to come every two, 
or four, years to the Legislature and beg for |10,000 to 
prevent three chairs of the University from being over- 
turned and destro3^ed. I know that men have said that 
the University is nothing more than a high school. It 
is no more a high school now than it has been in the 
past. You must judge an institution by its results. 
Look at the men who have come from it : Clement C. 
Clay and Wm. 1\. Smith and Jerry Clemens, and Gov- 
ernor Koberts of Texas; and Herbert, and Somerville 
and Hargrove of the present da^^ Look upon the floor 
of this Convention and, leaving me out of the calcula- 
tion, there sit upon the floor of this Convention thirt}^ 
graduates of the University of Alabama, and I say to 
you, mthout fear of contradiction, that in all the ele- 
ments that go to make up a perfect manhood, they 
measure man for man with any thirty delegates upon 
this floor. In all the walks of life, in Congress., at the 
bar, in the pulpit, in commercial and business and agri- 
cultural life, the sons of the University are the suc- 
cessful and prominent men of their section and their 
State. An institution that has done so much good work 
will do good work in the future. 

Now, it has been said that the University is under the 
influence of politics. It has become a catch phrase in 
the politics of Alabama to say that the University is 
controlled by politics. When has it been so controlled? 
Was it controlled by politics when the distinguished gen- 
tleman from Wilcox (Richard C. Jones) was elected 
President of it, because of the high character that he 
had maintained in the State? Was it controlled by poli- 
tics when James K. Powers, who h'ad, all his life, been 
devoted to normal education, was selected? Was it 
controlled by politics when that grand old man, William 
S. Wyman, was selected for its President in June? 

So far as I am concerned, I want to say that I have 
been on the Board of Trustees of the University since 
1897, and, so help me God, if I have ever cast a vote 
there that was controlled by political influence, I did 
it without my knowledge and without my consent ; and 



10 

I want to saj, in addition to that, of the members of that 
board as I have seen them and as I have known them, 
that every vote tliat they have cast and every, action 
that they have taken, has been for the best interests of 
the University as they saw it, and without regard to 
politics, or to the preferences, or choice, of any man 
on earth. 

Now, I say, Mr. President, that ithe University ought 
to be put beyond the pale of politics. On yesterday you 
did something which removed the possibility of politics 
in one direction, because you adopted a proposition Avhich 
prevents even a lobby upon the question of who shall be 
its trustees. Put it in such a position that it ^^411 not 
have to come here every four years and beg for money, 
and you still further remove it from politics. Why, 
take the matter as it will stand when this Constitution 
is adopted ; you have provided for quadriennial sessions 
of the Legislature; therefore, an appropriation bill, 
covering the |10,000 that is due and ought to come to 
the University, must have in it |40,000 for that insti- 
tution. Take a demagogue upon the floor of the House 
of Eepresentatives, and let him get up here and talk 
about the barefoot boys and all that sort of stuff, and 
say to the Legislature, ^^Are you going to give |40,000 
to educate the sons of rich men?'- and the |40,000 ap- 
propriation falls to the gTOund, and the University is 
crippled and almost destroyed. Now, what I ask of this 
Convention is to put the University in such a position 
that she will not have to come here year after year 
and beg for that which belongs to her of right. 

I have recently received a letter from Dr. Wyman, 
the President of the University, in which he reviews the 
income of the different colleges which are dependent 
upon land grants by Congress, and he states in that 
letter, and the figures show it, and I ask leave to have 
it read and printed as a part of my remarks, that the 
State of Alabama stands to-day at the very foot, or 
almost at the very foot, of the list, in reference to her 
great institution of learning. 

Now, Mr. President, that ought not to be so. I have 
not voted against any appropriation for the common 
schools. If I know my own heart, I would be willing to 
grant millions to the common schools, if vre had it to 
grant. I don't believe that this State ought to take one 



I 



11 

backward step in its appropriation for the benefit of its 
Confederate soldiers. Tliey ought to be maintained in 
comfort, aye, in luxury, until they join the grand army 
up Yonder where Lee is now in comnmnd. But I ap- 
pi^al to this Convention to look to higher ithings. You 
need a capstone to your educational system; in other 
words, you need a great instituticm where men can go 
and qualify themselves to occupy any position in the 
world. Great educators have said to me, in the recent 
past, that there is one need of the South. That need 
is a great central universit^^, like Harvard and Yale 
and Princeton and the University of Chicago. They 
have said to me, in addition to that, that the University 
of Alabama is the ideal place for the founding of such 
an institution. But can you hope to found, can you 
hope to lay even the bed-rock of, such an institution 
when, year after year, and day after day, the University 
is put to the necessity of coming to the Legislature and 
begging for the very staff of life? You cannot do it. 
The University is, and should be, the great central 
sun around which revolve the educational and intel- 
lectual life of the State, and I appeal to this Convention, 
not simply because I am a trustee of that institution, 
but because I am an alumnus of it, to make it so. The 
best influences that have ever come to my life, save 
those that came from my home, are those which came 
to me from her classic halls. I have done all that I 
could, in the years that are gone, for her prosperity and 
her advancement and her power, and I propose to do 
all that I can in the years that are left to me to make 
her an institution that shall reflect credit upon the 
State of my birth, and of my love. I ask this Conven- 
tion for this small pittance. It does not amount to 
much. It will not take a dollar from the common schools. 
It will not take a cent from the Confederate Veterans. 
It will not amount to a row of pins in the payment of 
the State's debt. But it places the University upon a 
safe and sound basis, and if you do it, gentlemen of 
the Convention, if you put her upon the high ground 
where polities cannot enter, and where the sole purpose 
of all connected with her Avill be her advancement and 
her progress, she will rally to her aid her sons from 
the Tennessee Valley to the Gulf, and they will do the 
rest. 



THE DANGER OF AN INCREASE OF 
EXECUTIVE POWER. 



The Constitutional Convention having under consideration the re- 
port of the Committee on Legislative Department, and the sub- 
stitute for the section giving the Governor and certain State offi- 
cers power to prepare and submit to the Legislature a revenue 
bill- 
Mr. Lomax said : 

Mr. President: I submit that the substitute 
offered by the gentleman from Dallas (Mr. Vaughan) 
for this section, ought to be adopted. There is 
no necessity for this provision. If it is a mere mat- 
ter of suggestion on the part of the Grovernor and other 
State officers, there is no necessity to put it in the 
Constitution, because the Governor has the power now, 
and will have it under this Constitution, to make sug- 
gestions as to a revenue bill, if he sees fit to do so. It 
is a dangerous innovation upon the principles of Amer- 
ican government. We have it from the English Consti- 
tution, and in every American Constitution, and in the 
Constitution of the United States, that measures for the 
raising of revenue must originate in the House of Com- 
mons, or in the House that comes from the people, 
which is the House of Kepresentatives under our sys- 
tem of government. Xow, to say, in our Constitution, 
that the Governor, the Auditor, and the Attorney Gen- 
eral, or any other officer of the State, shall prepare and 
present to the Legislature a revenue bill, in my judg- 
ment, seriously encroaches upon the rights of the peo- 
ple in this direction. It is utterly unrepublican. The 
power of suggestion carries wdth it the power of per- 
suasion, and the power of persuasion carries with it 
tiie power of threat, and the Governor might come to 
the General Assembl}^ and hold it by the throat and 
say: ''If you do not pass my revenue law, your bills 
will either be pigeon-holed or vetoed in the executive 
office.'^ Are you prepared to put in a Constitution 
which will last twenty-five or fifty years so dangerous 
an innovation upon the rights of the people? We have 
made changes enough already. We have changed the 



13 

bi-ennial sessions of the Legislature. AVe have taken 
aAva^^ the right of the people every two years to change 
their representaitives, and now you propose to put it 
in the power of this Oovernor that you place in office 
for four years to say: ''Here is a revenue bill that I 
have prepared. Adopt it, or refuse to adopt it at your 
peril." 

We cannot defend these changes and innovations be- 
fore the people. They are not expecting them. They 
were not demanding them, so far as my information 
goes, and I had something to do Avith the canvass that 
preceded the calling of this Convention. I tell you when 
you make innovations of so serious a nature you can- 
not successfully defend them before the people who are 
Avaitchful and anxious as to what the result of the work 
of this Convention will be. The legislative power ought 
to be a separate and distinct power ; there ought not to be 
put into the hands of the Executive office of Alabama 
anything which encroaches in the slightest degree upon 
the right of the people's representatives to say what 
their laws shall be. By this amendment, you place the 
hands of the Executive upon the money strings of the 
government Avhen the English idea and the American 
idea has always been to keep the fingers of the Executive 
away from them and to put them into the hands of the 
people. 

Mr. Sollie : Will it not strike down the system of 
checks and balances which has always been at the foun- 
dation of our government in America? 

Mr. Lomax : In my judgment, that would be its ten- 
dency. It says he may suggest it merely. That sounds 
all right. The language is innocent enough. 

Mr. McDonald : You say it is undemocratic and un- 
wise to put an obligation upon the Governor to make 
suggestions to the General Assembly? 

Mr. Lomax: No, sir, I did not. On the contrary, I 
said that the Governor now had the power to make sug- 
gestions. 

Mr. McDonald : Is it not his duty to make them ? 



14 

Mr. Lomax : Yes, it is his duty and he has the power 
to make them now, but he has not now power to make 
a revenue bill and to bring it into the House of Repre- 
sentatives and say: ^'You must adopt it or you canU 
get any legislation through the Executive office." 

Mr. O'Neal : He prepares laws for the Legislature. 

Mr. Lomax : Yes. He prepares them for the Legis- 
lature. 

Mr. Chapman: Does this section say that? 

Mr. Lomax: No, sir; but I say that is the tendency 
and natural consequences of it, and I appeal to this Con- 
vention not to put such power into the hands of the 
Executive as Avill enable him to defeat an expression 
of the will of the people as shown in the representative 
body of the General Assembly. Keep your departments 
of government separate and distinct. Preserve the mun- 
iments of liberty, and your people will bless you, rather 
than curse you, when you go to your homes. (Ap- 
plause. ) 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL LIMIT OF 
TAXATION. 



The Constitutional Convention having under consideration the re- 
port of the Committee on Taxation, recommending a reduction 
of the limit of State taxation, and an amendment thereto — 

Mr. Lomax said : 

Mr. President : I do not pretend to be anything 
of a statistician, or to be an expert in matters of 
taxation. Therefore, I shall not undertake to ques- 
tion the figures which have been furnished to this 
Convention by the chairman of its Committee on 
Taxation, or those which have come from any other 
gentleman who has undertaken to predict what will be 
the resources, or the expenditures, of the State in the 
future. 

But I care not how expert the statistician may be, I 
care not how learned on the subject of taxation the man 
may be, who undertakes to make predictions for the 
future, when he gets beyond five or ten years in the fut- 
ure, he gets into the field of speculation and there lives 
no man who can tell what will be the resources, or the 
expenditures, of a State after that lapse of time. If this 
Convention were making a tax rate for the next year, 
or the next two years, or the next five years, then we 
might with confidence accept the predictions of the 
chairman of the committee and fix a rate. But the Con- 
stitution we make, if ratified by the people, as I believe 
it will be, will not be for any short period of time, but 
for a generation, or at least for twenty-five years. Such 
being the case, we ought to go slowly on this question of 
a reduction in the limit of taxation. 

I have heard gentlemen discussing this question upon 
the floor of this Convention say that the gentlemen who 
are opposed to lowering the tax rate say this, that or 
the other thing. That is a misuse of words. I hesitate 
not to declare that there is not a single delegate in 
this Convention who desires, or wishes, to raise the tax 
rate, or who is opposed to a reduction of the tax rate. 
The opponents of the report of this committee upon 
the floor of the Convention are not opposed to a reduc- 



16 

tion of the tax rate, but are opposed to a reduction of 
the Umlt on taxation. That limit was fixed in the Con- 
stitution of 1875, and, if yrj memory serves me aright, 
in the course of time from 1875 down until this hour, it 
has never been found necessary to do so, and no Legis- 
lature has been found A^diich put the rate of taxation at 
the limit fixed in the Constitution except one. So that 
this apparent want of confidence in the courage of the 
Legislature, or in the willingness, or wish of the Legis- 
lature to reduce taxation is not well founded. I do not 
believe that there can be found, in the State of Alabama, 
one man, or 133 men, who can be sent to the Legislature 
upon a demand of the people for a reduction of taxa- 
tion, and who, when they get here and find that the 
rate of taxation cannot be reduced, will not vote for its 
reduction. Fixing a limit and fixing a rate are widely 
different propositions. We must fix the limit of taxa- 
tion in view of future contingencies. We must take 
into account what may happen in the future. We 
heard the other day an able, eloquent and ingenious 
address from a distinguished citizen of Alabama which 
was no less able and eloquent and ingenious because 
it happened to be the propaganda of a new dispensation 
of political thought and action in Alabama, in which he 
quoted from learned students of economic and indus- 
trial conditions the prediction that before many years 
had passed, the activity, the energy and the aggressive- 
ness of the industries of the United States in invad- 
ing European home markets would combine the Euro- 
pean nations in a war to prevent that invasion from con- 
tinuing — a war that would be backed up by fleets and 
armies; and the distinguished gentleman who quoted 
that prediction did not undertake to refute the possi- 
bility thereof. Should such a thing happen and this 
country be involved in such a war in what condition 
would the people of Alabama be with a 65 cent limit on 
taxation? A war like that would involve the exertion of 
all the wealth and power and capacity of this country 
to successfully maintain. A war like that would shut 
down every industry in the State of Alabama. It would 
paralyze the coal and iron industry, from which we ex- 
pect so much in the future. It would close down every 
cotton factory in the State of Alabama. It would make 



17 

the work of the agriculturist unremunerative, and would 
reduce him to poverty and want. Valuations would j^o 
doAvn so that within a short period, unless Ave had 
a higher limit of taxation, the honor and credit of the 
State would be absolutely destroyed. 

Mr. Hixson : May I inquire what the gentleman is 
in favor of, are you in favor of the limit in the present 
Constitution? 

Mr. Lomax: Yes. 

Mr. Hinson: Then I make the point of order, Mr. 
President, that the gentleman is not addressing him- 
self to the question before the House, Avhich is the 
amendment of the delegate from Hale fixing the limit 
at 70 cents. 

Mr. Lomax : My remarks apply equally to the amend- 
ment of the delegate from Hale. 

The President : It seems to the Chair that the gen- 
tle man is properly within the limit of debate. 

Mr. Lomax : I regret extremely that I have been 
so unfortunate in what I have said that I have not been 
able to inform my friend, the delegate from Lowndes, 
of the position I take. I shall undertake to be more ex- 
plicit and careful in the future, so that whatever I 
shall say shall have at least some applicability to the 
subject at hand. 

Eeference has been made, Mr. President, and fre- 
quently, to the vast possibilities of revenue, which lie 
within the power of the State from the enormous in- 
crease in the building of cotton factories under our 
recent law which exempts them from taxation for a 
limited period; and a vast estimate was made of what 
would come to this State from taxation by reason of 
the enormous value of those cotton factories in 1907. 
Have the gentlemen forgotten the recent little flurry 
in China? Every man acquainted with the cotton trade 
of the South knows that, by reason of the little misun- 
derstanding which occurred the other day in China, 
every single cotton factory in the South which dealt in 
the coarser grades of cotton goods that went to the 
Chinese markets was absolutely paralyzed, and either 
had to run at a loss because they did not want their 
labor dispersed or run awa}^, or else had to shut down 
from time to time in order to save expenses. 



18 



Mr. Foster: Would it not be better to remove all 
limitation in order to meet that great Avar you are ex- 
pecting? 

Mr. Lomax : I do not know that it would be better 
to remove all limit. One reason it would not be is that 
the people of Alabama are accustomed to a limit on the 
rate of taxation, and anothcT reason why it would 
not be better to remove all limit is that the gentleman 
from Tuscaloosa and I stood on a platform which 
pledged that we would not raise the limit of taxation. 

Mr. Foster: Are Ave not equally pledged to reduce 
it, if possible? 

Mr. Lomax: Yes; and the very proposition to which 
I am addressing myself is that we are not pledged ab- 
solutely to reduce it because it is not practicable to 
do so. 

Mr. Banks : Would it not be better to have no limit 
than too high a limit? 

Mr. Lomax: I am afraid my friend was reading a 
newspaper when I answered the same question put by 
the gentleman from Tuscaloosa. I say it would not be 
better. I say that for at least thirty years the people 
have been accustomed to a limit. 

Mr. Banks : The gentleman misunderstood my ques- 
tion. I asked the gentleman if it would not be better 
to have no limit than too low a limit. 

Mr. Lomax : Oh, certainly, I beg pardon of the gen- 
tleman. I did not catch his question. It certainly 
would be better. 

I was proceeding to say, Mr. President and gentlemen 
of the Convention, that the small affair in China the 
other day almost paralyzed the cotton industry of the 
South. No man knows when the Yellow Dragon of 
the East will awaken from his slumber. No man 
knows when the civilized powers of the Avorld may be 
engaged in a war with China which will absolutely shut 
off and destroy an^^ possibility of trade with that coun- 
try, and when that time comes where Avill be your in- 
come from your cotton factories, the greater number of 
which are more or less engaged in the manufacture of 



19 

the coarser g^rades of cotton goods that go to that trade? 
Either they must shut down, or they must spend every 
dollar of their capital, and every dollar of the increased 
capital they might get, for the purpose of putting in 
new machinery to make goods for other trades. 

AVhen you are making a Constitution, gentlemen, you 
must not look alone at the immediate possibilities that 
lie in the vast future beyond. A great many promises 
have been made to us in recent years, of the increased 
trade Avhich would come to America by reason of the ac- 
quisition of the Philippine Islands, and we of the South 
have been told that, with the Philippine Islands in our 
I>ossession, a vast trade would come to us by reason 
of our manufacture of the cotton goods and our i>ro- 
duction of the provisions necessary to clothe and feed 
these people. We have been told that there were mil- 
lions to be fed and clothed, and that trade would make 
the South blossom like the rose. Millions to be fed and 
clothed! Clothed with breecli-cloth and fed on a 
banana ! We have been in the entire and absolute pos- 
session of the bay, the harbor, and the city of Manila 
for a long period of time, and statistics show that al- 
most nine-tenths of the increased trade with the Philip- 
pine Islands has been in the trade in American whiskey 
for the American troops. Now in this State we are 
not engaged very largely in the manufacture of that 
article, and that, in which some of our independent cit- 
izens are engaged, — the white looking liquid, — the 
aroma of which lingers upon the breath even after the 
second day, never gets exported further than the mouth 
of the mountain canon where it is manufactured, and 
where the revenue ofiicer goes with fear and trembling. 

Let us look at another phase of this question. The 
man who thinks that the convict system of Alabama is 
going to remain for another generation as it is to-day 
is a dreamer. The time is coming, and it is coming 
speedily, gentlemen of the Convention, when there will 
be an absolute, an entire and a radical change, in the 
convict system of Alabama. You cannot always farm 
out your convicts as you do to-day. As it is now the 
Convict Department is not only paying into the State 
treasury a large revenue, but it is almost entirely 
supporting the administration of the criminal laws 
of this State. When a change shall come in the sys- 



20 

tern, and it must come as civilization grows and en- 
lightenment extends, it not only will strike dowia the 
revenue which you derive now from the convict sys- 
tem, but you will find yourselves face to face with the 
proposition that the State of Alabama must provide some 
other means to pay for the administration o'f the crim- 
inal law, and that means a vast outlay of money. With 
the S'luall surplus that is promised us by the Chairman 
of this committee, under this tax limit, how will you 
make provision for the administration of the criminal 
laws in the sixty-six counties of Alabama? It is utterly 
impossible to do it. 

Members of this Convention cannot have forgotten the 
large amount of money which was expended within re- 
cent years when a quarantine against smallpox was in- 
augurated in Alabama. With the small surplus that 
is promised under the provisions we have here, where 
would the funds come from to meet another epidemic 
of that sort, or any epidemic that required a large ex- 
penditure of money? 

We have had strikes in Alabama. The time was, not 
many years ago, when, encamped on the hills of Jeff- 
erson county, was every State troop in Alabama, and 
they stayed there for weeks at an expenditure of enor- 
mous quantities oif money. Are we to be free from strikes 
in the future? No man 'can say so, because there is but 
one way to judge the future and that is by the past; 
and the time may come, and it may come at any moment, 
when, by reason of a disagreement between operative,^ 
and employees, there will be required the use of every 
armed man in Alabama's service to preserve the peace. 
Money will have to be expended for the transportation of 
troops, for the pay of these troops, and for their main- 
tenance. This may come next year, it may not come in 
ten years, or it may come every year, and I submit that, 
under the figures of this committee, no provision is 
made for this contingency in the future. 

Now, gentlemen have asked the question if I do not 
think that the people will be grateful to us for giving 
them this reduction in the tax limit, or if I believe that 
they have not sense enough to know w^hat they want. 
I believe, Mr. President, that the people have got sense 
enough to know what they want^ and sense enough 



21 

not to be grateful for a small reduction of taxation, 
Avliicli is to be made up by increased 'assessments and 
which Avill imperil the honor of the State. The honor 
of the State of Alabama is as dear to the humblest cit- 
izen as the small tax reduction that this change in the 
limit would take off of him, and he is not only not going 
to be grateful to you for making such reduction, but he 
will say to you, in no uncertain tones, that to create a 
little cheap popularity for this Constitution before the 
people you have sought to deceive him, and you have done 
worse than that, you have imperiled the honor of the 
State. We want the honor of the State maintained. 
We want the time to come when on every hillside in 
Alabama there will be a coke oven, and the smoke of her 
factories and furnaces shall be like a "pillar of cloud 
by day,'' calling the children of toil into this land of 
happiness and content, and our great State will be 
the center of the industrial world. 

I appeal to you, gentlemen of the Convention, not to 
imperil these grand possibilities; not to make such re- 
duction in the tax limit that the honor of our State 
will be endangered. Keep the time from ever coming 
again when, outside the Constitution, we must go to 
the marts of commerce in New York, and pawn our 
Auditor's warrants for the money with which to pay 
our debts! Let us be in that position where w^e can 
take every advantage of the reduction in interest rates 
that may come, not tomorrow, or the next day, but at 
am^ time in the future. Let us have the manhood to 
say that, rather than the cheap popularity which a 
small reduction in the limit of taxation will give to 
this Constitution before the people, we stand first, last, 
and all the time, for the honor and the glory and the 
dignity of our grand commonwealth. (Applause.) 



THE EXEMPTION OF THE PROPERTY OF 

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 

FROM TAXATION. 



The Constitutional Convention having under consideration the re- 
port of the Committee on Taxation, and certain amendments 
offered thereto limiting the exemption of institutions devoted to 
educational purposes to 200 acres of land with the buildings 
thereon and personal property to $10,000 exclusive of philo- 
sophical and chemical apparatus, musical instruments and 'li- 
braries — 

Mr. Lomax said : 

Mr. President: I do not think either of these 
'amendments ought to be referred back to the 
committee or adopted by this Convention. By no prop- 
osition that could be offered would you strike a deadlier 
blow at higher education in Alabama than by the adop- 
tion of this amendment. The amendment as framed and 
as amended puts a tax upon every acre of land owned by 
the University of Alabama, because that land is held 
in the name of the Board of Trustees of the University, 
and not in the name of the State of Alabama. 

Mr. Foster: May I interrupt the gentleman? 

Mr. Lomax: Certainly. 

Mr. Foster: Does not the gentleman know that it 
is uniformly held by the courts in this country that 
lands held in the name of trustees for the benefit of 
the States are not taxable? 

Mr. Lomax : I do not know that it would be so held 
as to this land. The Supreme Court of Alabama has 
never passed on the question, and there has never been 
a Constitutional provision of this sort in this State. We 
cannot tell what the Supreme Court will hold in view 
of such new and changed purposes on the part of the 



23 

Constitution makers of the State. This amendment puts 
a tax upon the Pol3^technic Institute and the school at 
Montevallo — all of their lauds. If it so happens that 
Howard College at Birmingham owns au}^ land, or has 
in prospect the owning of any land, it would tax that 
land. It would put a tax upon the land of the Greens- 
boro College, if it owns au}^ land. It would put a tax 
upon the lands of every institution for higher educa- 
tion in the State of Alabama, and I submit it ought not 
to be done. It also puts a tax upon the personal prop- 
erty of institutions of that sort over |20,000 under the 
provisions of the amendment to the amendment. Sup- 
pose it should happen, and God grant that it may, that 
either the University or the Polytechnic Institute, or 
Howard College, or the University of the South at 
Greensboro, or that at Owenton, should receive an en- 
dowment which would enable them to put in a plant 
for the education of the young men of Alabama worth 
$100,000, do you propose to say that the people of 
Alabama want to put a tax on $80,000 of that money, 
invested in Alabama, for the education of her young 
men? Suppose, as m^^ friend from Lauderdale suggests, 
some philanthropist should give a library to one of 
thesq great institutions of learning in the State of 
Alabama, of the value of $100,000? 

Mr. Cobb : That is exempted in my amendment. 

Mr. Lomax: Is apparatus exempted? 

Mr. Cobb : Yes. 

Mr. Lomax : Let that amendment be read ag^ain. 
The amendment was read, showing that the language 
was not as the delegate from Macon understood. 

Mr. Cobb : Put it there. 

Mr. Lomax: That don't include mechanical appa- 
ratus or apparatus for a school of mines or apparatus 
that would be needed in many different schools that 
might be established in any of these institutions. 

Mr. White : If some gentleman should donate $100,- 
000 of bonds to the University, the interest to be ap- 
plied annually, would that be exempt? 



24 

Mr. Lomax : It would not be under the amendments. 

But even admitting that the University lands would 
be exempt, even admitting that the Montevallo property 
and lands would be exempt, and that the Alabama Poly- 
technic Institute would be exempt, and that Howard 
College and the Greensboro and Owenton colleges 
would be exempt, are we going to pass this amendment 
to put a tax upon the school of Booker Washington? 
Why should we tax that more than other school? I 
submit to you, gentlemen of the Convention — 

Mr. Gates: I would like to ask my colleague from 
Montgomery if the State is not a contributor to that 
school. 

Mr. Lomax: Yes. 

Mr. Gates : And would it not assist in cutting down 
so much of the State's appropriation? 

Mr. Lomax : Yes. 

A Delegate : I would like to enquire whether or not 
the Masonic Temple, costing over $50,000, would be 
exempt under this. 

Mr. Cobb : That is education. 

Mr. Lomax : It is charitable, devoted exclusively to 
charity. 

Mr. Cobb : The gentleman misunderstood the amend- 
ment. This applies only to educational institutions and 
does not include the Masonic Temple or churches, or 
charitable institutions, and while I am on my feet I 
want to disclaim any purpose to discriminate on ac- 
count of race, color or previous condition. 

Mr. Eobinson : May I ask the gentleman from Mont- 
gomery a question? 

Mr. Lomax: Certainly. 

Mr. Eobinson: Gught not the agricultural schools 
to have more than 200 acres of land? 

Mr. Lomax: Certainly they should. Then look at 
it in another way. The State of Alabama contributes 
to — I beg your pardon — pa^-s to the University of Ala- 
bama on the debt it owes it, |24,000 a year, and con- 
tributes out of the general fund $10,000 a year to sup- 
port that institution. What is the sense, as suggested 



25 

by my colleague from Montgomery (Mr. Gates) of pay- 
ing 136,000 out of your treasury a year for the support 
of an institution, and then taking back half of it in 
the way of taxes? The same proposition applies to 
the Alabama Polytechnic Institute. 

Mr. Cobb: It has no application whatever to the 
University or the A. & M. 

Mr. Bulger : For information, suppose one of the 
religious denominations owned six or eight hundred 
acres of land and established a school on it? 

Mr. Lomax: Under this 'amendment it would be 
taxed. And if the A. & M. College or Polytechnic In- 
stitute at Auburn owns land, the effect of this amend- 
ment is to tax that land, and there is no sense in pay- 
ing to that institution a certain amount of money a 
year, on its endowment fund, and requiring it to pay 
back to the State treasury a part of that money by 
way of taxation; and there is no more reason why the 
Constitutional Convention should put a tax on a de- 
nominational school because it owns property and is in 
better condition, hy reason of owning property, to 
afford higher education to the sons of Alabama than 
to apply the same proposition to State schools. Instead 
of undertaking to tax these institutions and cripple 
their energies, instead of undertaking to reduce their 
powers and curtail their influence, we should in the 
interest of — I am not talking about barefooted boys 
alone, of whom we have heard so much — but in the in- 
terest of education in Alabama, in the interest of the 
wider spirit of progress in education and our broader 
enlightment, and in the interest of a grander civiliza- 
tion, we should contribute every means in our power 
to upbuild every institution of learning which has for 
its purpose the improvement of our youth in letters, in 
morals, and in character. I submit that this Constitu- 
tional Convention cannot afford, in this day and time, 
in this enlightened age, when all the agencies of all 
the civilized countries in the world are being used for 
the upbuilding of man's character, for the elevation 
of his morals and the broadening of his mind, — I submit 
that we ought not to take a step which puts Alabama 
back in the spirit in the dark ages in the line of educa- 
tion, and which, in my judgment, strikes down and im- 



26 

pairs the usefulness of every institution of learning in 
the State. 

The section as reported by the committee is, word for 
word, the section which was in the Constitution of 
1875. I have no doubt that, if I had the references be- 
fore me, I could show that the same section was in 
every Constitution that has ever been adopted in Ala- 
bama. I do not suppose that, ever before, in any Con- 
stitutional Convention in Alabama, it T^^as proposed that 
the State, by taxation, should undertake to cripple, 
and paralj^ze, and destroy the institutions of higher 
education and learning that existed within the State. 
For the reasons that I have stated, I move that the 
motion to refer this proposition and amendments back 
to tlie committee, be laid on the table. I do not want 
to cut off debate, and, if my friend from Macon wishes 
to discuss it, I will withdraw the motion to table. 



THE SUFFRAGE. 



The Constitutional Convention having under consideration the re- 
port of the Committee on Suffrage and Elections — 

Mr. Loiiiax said : 

Mr. President : When I heard that there would be 
a minority report from the Committee on Sulfrage and 
Elections, I hoped that, in that minority report, which, 
in my judgment, struck down the best feature of the 
nuijority plan, there would be some suggestion of a rem- 
edy, some intimation of a scheme by which Ave could ac- 
complish the great purpose for which this Convention 
is assembled, and in that hope I was disappointed. The 
report of the minority contained nothing but doubts 
as to our future, prophecies of evil, predictions of dis- 
aster and forebodings of calamity, and with those pre- 
dictions and those prophecies and those forebodings, 
they offered to this Convention nothing which, in the 
judgment of any candid man, could meet the situation 
in which we are placed, or could accomplish the pur- 
poses for which we are assembled. 

This great movement which has taken place already 
in Mississippi, Louisiana and North and South Caro- 
lina, this great movement on which to-day the peojDle 
of Virginia and of Alabama are acting, must have been 
founded upon some great evil that needed a remedy. 
The States which I have named have already acted. 
Alabama and Virginia will act, and those States that 
have not done so will act hereafter, and they will act 
because they believe that the time has come to put a 
stop to frauds in elections; because they are unwilling 
to continue a system which makes perjury honorable 
and bribery a badge of distinction; because they are 
unwilling to impose on posterity the awful incubus 
under which we labor, and which is honeycombing the 
morals of our people with fraud and perjury; because 
they desire their children to be reared in an atmos- 
phere of moral purity; because they wish to establish 
a purified electorate and to decree a perpetual reign 
of virtue and intelligence; and when they have so acted, 



28 

they will be sustained by the moral sentiment of the 
world and no power of finite intelligence will dare to 
disturb their decree. 

Now, what are the objections that are urged to the 
plan of the majority of this committee? The gentle- 
men expressed the opinion, one of them, at least, very 
doubtfully, my distinguished colleague from Montgom- 
ery (Mr. Gates) that what is called the grand- 
father clause is unconstitutional. That is a misnomer, 
as has already been said. It is not a grandfather clause, 
but they have succeeded in fastening that name upon 
it, and, therefore, I will so term it. I do not propose, 
or purpose, or intend, to go into a legal argument upon 
this proposition, but from my reading of the decisions 
and from what I have been able to gather in the course 
of this debate it is my opinion that this clause is not 
unconstitutional. The proposition, it seems to me, is 
this: That unless it is plainly written in the letter 
of the law, or plainly established in its administration 
by the agencies of the State, that a discrimination is 
made because of race or color, or previous condition of 
servitude, the clause must stand as constitutional. No 
court can look at the letter of this law, no court can look 
at the manner of its administration, if it is adminis- 
tered as it is proposed to be done, and say that there 
is written, either in its language, or, in its administra- 
tion, any discrimination against any man because of his 
race or his color or his previous condition of servitude, 
and, therefore, it stands to reason, under the great 
weight of authority that the clause is not unconstitu- 
tional. 

It has been said that this Is a great scheme on the part 
of the Black Belt — I do not mean merely upon the floor 
of this Convention, but in the public press — that this is 
a great scheme on the part of the Black Belt to perpet- 
uate itself in power in Alabama. Who, gentlemen of 
ithe Convention, started the call for a Constitutional Con- 
vention? It came from the Black Belt of Alabama. They 
wanted relief from the terrible situation in which they 
had been for twenty-five years ; they wanted to stop fraud 
in elections; they wanted to put an end to those influ- 
ences which were corrupting the morals of their peo- 
ple; and they persisted in that call until, by the direc- 
tion of the sovereign people of Alabama, we are here in 



29 

convention to-day, seeking relief from fraud, begging 
that the incubus of perjury be taken off our shoulders, 
urging a purified electorate. We are told here, when 
this Suffrage Committee lias reported that it is a scheme 
on the part of the Black Belt to perpetuate ithe methods 
which have heretofore prevailed, and to entrench them- 
selves in pov^^er ; and it is said that, as a part of that 
scheme, we have put in that grandfaither clause to tem- 
porarily catch the votes of the white counties, know^ing 
that it will be stricken down by the Supreme Court of 
the United States, and tliait, therefore, they will be ex- 
cluded from suffrage under the permanent plan of the 
committee, when the registration has taken place un- 
der this grandfather clause, with the other clause in it 
ithat permits registration because of good character and 
the understanding of the duties of citizenship. I ask 
you, gentlemen of the Convention, what court can de- 
termine that the men who are permanently registered 
as voters, were registered under the grandfather clause, 
or the clause of good character and understanding? It 
is impossible for that to be determined by any court, 
and, therefore, the men who come into our registration 
under this grandfather clause will be permanent voters 
and there is no court in the world that can strike down 
their rights. But it is said that it creates a permanent 
and hereditary class. It is not hereditary, because no 
man secures the right to vote by reason of the fact that 
his father had it, and it is not permanent because the 
men upon whom it is conferred must soon pass away. 
It is said, in further objection to the clause, that it 
will insult the white men who cannot read or write — 
that it will insult the sons of Confederate soldiers who 
cannot read and write — to make them come into the elec- 
torate upon such terms. Insult them by saying that be- 
cause your father went forth to die in glory with Sidney 
Johnston, or to live in immortality with Eobert Lee, you 
shall have the right to vote? They will wear that right, 
gentlemen of the Convention, as as proud distinction 
as you old men wear upon your breast ithe bronze badge 
of courage put there by the women of the South. 
( Applause. ) 

We are told that the adoption of this plan will make 
capital timid and check immigration. W^e heard be- 
fore (this Convention met, and I read it in an article pre- 



30 

pared hj my distinguished friend, from Montgomery 
(Mr. Jones) that capital was timid, that indu&try 
halted and immigration stopped at the doors of the 
State where the suffrage was subject to manipulation. 
AVe come into this Convention and offer a plan that 
forever stops manix3ulation of the suffrage, and we are 
told that if we do this thing, capital will become timid, 
investments will stoi) and immigration will fail to 
seek us. AA^here is the country, in which, and when in 
history did, it ever occur that capital was timid of en- 
tering a State where the reign of virtue and intelligence 
Avas made permanent and perpetual? When did it hap- 
pen that immigration ran away from tthe borders of a 
country where an electorate was established of the higli- 
est morality and strictest virtue? That is the object 
sought by this Convention. That is the object that will 
be attained by this Convention, and I deny the proposi- 
tion that such things will come upon us as the result 
of our action. 

They tell us further that Southern representation in 
Congress and in the electoral college will be. cut down, 
if we abandon universal manhood suffrage. California, 
Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New 
Hamijshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont do not to-day 
have universal manhood suffrage. Can they strike down 
representation of Alabama because we abandon uni- 
versal manhood suffrage, and let these States retain 
their representation? And suppose they do. Suppose 
our representation is reduced. I submit to you, gentle- 
men of the Convention, that reduction in representation 
is a small sacrifice to make for pure elections and the 
supremacy of virtue and intelligence. ( Applause. ) Ah, 
but they make more dire predictions than that. The 
distinguished gentleman from Lee (Mr. Harrison) told 
this Convention that it might happen, in the event that 
this suffrage clause was adopted, that Alabama would 
again be reconstructed. Strike down a sovereign State 
by reconstruction; desitroy its form of governmi^nt; 
make its every bond, State, county, and municipal, ab- 
solutely without value ; paralyze its industries ; close up 
its furnaces, and factories, and reduce it to the condi- 
tion of a conquered province, because that people have 
risen in their manhood and said that fraud and perjury 
in elections shall disappear forever from its limits? Will 



81 

tlie}^ do it? Ah, gentlemen, even if they dared attempt it, 
the voice — the still, but potent, voice — from AVall Htreet 
thait sent the Hag- to Torto liico, but held up the Con- 
stitution when it undertook to follow the flag, will say 
to those people that attempt it, ''Murderers, stay thy 
hands!" and they will be stayed. 

We are told further, gentlemen of the Convention, that 
if we estahlish this plan, the negro will leave the {South, 
will leave Alabama. Where will he go? >Vill he go 
to Mississippi, to Louisiana, to South Carolina or 
North Carolina? 

He will be met upon the threshold of those JStates 
with the precise condition that he occupies in Alabama. 
AVill he go to Illinois? Some of them went up there but 
yesterday, and the}^ had to be guarded in tlieir cars 
Avith shot guns until the engine could fire up and 
bring them back to the South. (Applause.) Will they 
go to Africa? The failure of the Nineteenth century 
was the Republic of Liberia, and, however much of 
philauthropic monej^ there may be north of our bor- 
ders, there is not enough to establish a colony of ten 
million beings and maintain them until the}^ learn the 
arts of free government. They will not go. The old 
negro from the Southern plantation and his sou care 
nothing for the right of suffrage. The majority, and a 
vast majoritj^ of them, are content to stay where they 
have stayed since they were born, and they are content 
to labor so long as the^^ are met vrith justice, and fair 
dealing ; and those who m'ay want to go, who may feel up- 
on them the awful responsibility which declares they 
must participate in the government, if they go and leave 
the others, they will establish rather a period of happi- 
ness and contentment than a period of distress or dis- 
aster. 

We are told, Mr. President, that if we adopt this 
scheme, these Registration Boards will destroy the rights 
of the people. I have been surprised at the distrus«t 
which has been evidenced in this Convention of the peo- 
ple and their officers. When we had the Executive article 
under consideration it seemed to be the supreme pur- 
pose of the Convention to hedge around the Governor 
and the State officers with legislation, upon the theory 
that they were all not entitled to the itru§t and confi- 
dence of the people. When the Legislative Article came 



32 

to be considered we found the same distrust of the 
men to be selecited by the people to represent them in 
the making of laws. And, when we come to this Election 
Article, the same spirit of distrust rises up and says 
we cannot trust these men to be fair; w^e cannot trust 
these men to be honorable. Is republican government a 
failure? If we cannot trust the Executive Department, if 
we eannot trust the Legislative Department, if we cannot 
trust the men who are to manage this registration, then 
popular government must be on its decline, because the 
people must have gone so wrong that they select men for 
public office unworthy of the great trust imposed upon 
them ; and we are ready, if that be true, to adopt the sug- 
gestion that came but a few days ago from Australia that 
our government in America had failed, and that it was 
best for us to once more accept the sovereignty of the 
British Empire. I do not believe that free government is 
a failure. The very movement that produced this Con- 
vention shows that men are capable of self-government. 
Here, when after the war, these people had been strick- 
en down, their right to vote had been taken away, the 
Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments had 
been passed for the purpose, 'and with the object, of put- 
ting the black heel upon the white throat — these people 
— our people — said you have undertaken to tie us down 
by every means that you can, buit by the blood of our 
Caucassian ancestors who fought for, and won with their 
blood, this land in which we live, w^e will rule it by the 
shot gun or by fraud. For twenty-five years they have 
ruled it. By the same token they could have ruled it 
for tTrenty-five or fifty years more, and yet because that 
fraud v/as wrong, because they did not want their chil- 
dren to grow up in that atmosphere, because they wanted 
to establish purity in morals in public and private life, 
these people, rising ''from the stepping stone of itheir 
dead selves to higher things," declared that, with all 
this pov/er, we will have a Constitutional Convention, 
and take away the possibility of fraud in Alabama 
forever, though it means our own defeat. (Applause.) 
Tell me that, with such a people, free government is 
dead ! Tell me there is no patriotism in men like that ! 
I say to you, gentlemen of the Convention, it took pat- 
riotism like that which sustained Washington and the 
Continental Army amid the gloom and despondency and 



ii 



33 

snow and ice of Valley Forge, and made possible the 
splendid triumph of Yorktown. It took a patriotism 
like that whicli sustained the men of 1812, 'and not- 
withstanding the disasters that laid Avaste their coun- 
try and devoted their capital ito the flames, enabled them 
to hurl back from the soil of freedom the red cohorts 
of British invasion. It took a patriotism like that which 
sustained Zachary Taylor and Jefferson Davis upon the 
historic field of Buena Vista and sent Scotit from the 
triumph of Vera Cruz to tread unchallenged the Halls of 
the Montezumas. It took patriotism like that which 
sent Pickett to the itop of Cemetery Kidge, and enabled 
Hancock to hold those historic heights, at Gettysburg. 
A patriotism such as that must live forever, and keep 
free government alive so long as the people are true to 
(the principles of their country and traditions of their 
race. 

Now, gentlemen, I am not here, and we are not here, 
to disfranchise the negro race alone; we are here for a 
higher purpose and a nobler aim. That purpose and 
that aim are to establish pure elections in Alabama. 
I was born in this State; I expect to die within her 
borders, and I wish to contribute all thait I can to her 
welfare and prosperity, and I feel — I feel it in my very 
bones — that when I have voted to put upon the people 
of this State the plan of the majority of this committee, 
I AA'ill have done all that man can do to insure her peace, 
prosperity and power. (Applause.) When this Con- 
stitution shall have been ratified by the people, we will 
have assured the supremacy of virtue and intelligence 
in our great State, we will have stricken down forever 
fraud and corruption in elections; we will have driven 
from the field of polities all temptation to strife and 
eradicated all elements of discord along racial lines; 
we will have '^softened, graced and ennobled the spirit 
of party, and driven the bandit propensities skulking 
to their dens" ; we will have bullded anew the foundations 
of morality and truth In public and private life, and 
laid broad and deep the beginnings of an elevated and 
high-minded citizenship, devoted to the arts of peace, 
drinking deep at the fountains of knowledge, alert and 
vigorous in the upbuilding of a great State, wherein 
there shall be found a population of millions ^'of immor- 
tal beings, engrossed in a proportion far beyond that of 



34 

any other in the world in the toils of agriculture and 
manufacture and commerce," and the music of whose 
unnumbered industries shall beat quick-step of the 
world's progress; and in the era of peace, prosperity 
and power that will come to us, our people can exclaim 
Avith truth and with thankisgiving : ^ "At last ; at last ! 
Danger's troubled night is o'er; and the Star of Peace 
returned. ' ' ' ( Applause. ) 



_;i 



THE JURY SYSTEM 



The Constitutional Convention having under consideration a re- 
port from the minority of the Committee on Preamble and Dec- 
laration of Rights providing that in civil actions three-fourths 
of a jury may render a verdict — 

Mr. Lomax said : 

Mr. President: I do not believe any question 
has yet come before this Convention which more 
involves the essential liberties of the people of 
xllabama than the question now before you, and, there- 
fore, it has not seemed to me that an attempt ought to 
be made to cut off a full and fair discussion of it, but 
I believe now every view of this question has been pre- 
sented, and I believe this Convention is ready to say 
what shall be done with the original proposition and 
both amendments. Hence, I shall not detain you long 
in the discussion of the question. 

The very fact that the amendment offered by the mi- 
nority of the committee and the amendment offered by 
the gentleman from Greene (Mr. Coleman) are in such 
direct antagonism, is to my mind evidence that these 
amendments ought not to be adopted and that the section 
should stand as reported by the committee. 

The complaint made on Saturday was that by rea- 
son of the fact that bribery stalks at noontime, and sits 
in the court house in the evening hour, we should provide 
that a majority of nine men should control the verdict 
of a jury, because the men who are injured by great 
corporations can not get at them as long as they (the 
corporations) have the power to bribe one man on a 
jury. I do not believe, with all due deference to my 
friends, that the people of Alabama are as corrupt 
and venal as they are painted in that declaration. I do 
not believe that Ibribery runs rampant over the hills and 
valleys of Alabama. I believe that in the matter of mor- 
als, in the matter of honesty, and in the matter of in- 
tegrity, the people of Alabama to-day compare with its 
people in any period of its history, and will compare 
with the people of any time in the future. If it be 
true that in some portions of Alabama there is bribery of 



36 

jurors, gentlemen who represent that portion of the 
State ought to go home and punish the bribe-givers 
and takers, and not seek to strike down the muniments 
of liberty of all the rest of the State to accomplish this 
purpose. 

Now, I have no sympathy with the idea that one side 
or the other of this proposition is interested because 
of peculiar interests its adherents happen to represent 
in coui-t. But I want to call the attention of the Conven- 
tion to one particular proposition in connection with 
that idea about fthe verdict of juries being controlled 
by corporations by securing one man. Most of the ac- 
tions for damages which are brought in this State for 
personal injury are brought against railroad corpora- 
tions. Every single large railroad corporation in Ala- 
bama is chartered under the laws of a foreign State. 
Pass this amendment, provide for a verdictiby nine men, 
bring your suits in the State court against the corpora- 
tions, and all these corporations would have to do would 
be to move to transfer that case to the Federal courts 
and entrench themselves forever behind a verdict of 
twelve men, and the result would be — 

Mr. Boone : Is not the law that on the law side of 
the Federal courts under express statute, the proceed- 
ings conform (to the proceedings of the State courts? 

Mr. Lomax : Yes ; but that does not affect the guar- 
antee of the Federal Constitution of a jury of twelve; 
and the result will be, if you adopt this provision, you 
will drive the corporations into the impregnable fortress 
of (the Federal court and make this rule only to affect 
the common people of Alabama. Are you prepared 
to do it? 

Mr. Blackwell: Does the gentlemen tell the Con- 
vention that when the amount involved is less than 
|2,000 that you can transfer that case? 

Mr. Lomax: Certainly not. But whoever heard of 
a damage suiit for less than |2,000 where tliere was an 
injury as much as the loss of a finger? I would like to 
be pointed to one on the records of the courts of Ala- 
bama. 

So I say by the adoption of this proposed amendment 
you absolutely intrench these corporations in the Fed- 



37 



eral court and you don't accomplish the purpose 3^ou 
desire. 

Now, they say this provision has cobwebs on it. I 
have hearcj that the best wine has cobwebs on its bot- 
tles. 

It is said that this provision had its origin in the days 
when the docftrine prevailed that kings held the divine 
right. It did, and, upon the plains of Kunnymede, from 
the throat of a king Avho claimed that divine right, the 
people of England wrung (this concession, and it stands 
to this day untouched in English law. It was not onl}^ 
in Magna Charta but it was in the Declaration of Rights 
at the restitution of Charles the Second. It was put in 
the Act of Settlement when William and Mary came 
to the throne. It was embedded in the American Con- 
stitution and there it ought to stand until time shall be 
no more. 

But we are told that some of the great States have 
adopted this reform. What States do they cite to us? The 
States of Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, 
Missouri, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, 
North Dakota, Washington and Wyoming. 

Mr. Weatherly: Will the gentleman allow me to 
ask if North Dakota is the State where you can get a 
divorce in twenty-four hours? 

Mr. Lomax: Yes; and Wyoming is a Woman's Suf- 
frage State, and Colorado is another, and all of the 
States, with the exception of three or four, have not yet 
got the swaddling clothes of statehood off. 

Mr. White : How about California, Connecticut and 
Texas? 

Mr. Lomax: I am reading from the States cited 
in the argument of my learned friend, Mr. Blackwell. 
If there are others, I don't know it. I suppose he cited 
them all. But when you refer us to the great reform in 
the jurisprudence and judicial system of a State, why 
don't you refer us to some of the great States that have 
been the leaders in public thought for a century? Why 
don't you refer us to New York, which, only a few years 
ago, had a Constitutional Convention? Why don't you 
carry us to Massachusetts, where the law has always 
been executed in all the perfection of detail for 100 



38 

3' ears? Why refer us to these little children that have 
grown up here like mushrooms in the last twenty years? 

Now, my learned friend from Jefferson ( Mr. Beddow) 
read on yesterday from an elaborate report that was 
made by a committee, I believe it was said of seventy, 
to the English Parliament, in which they advocated 
the reform of the jury system; this very reform that is 
proposed here now, the reduction of the number of the 
jury necessary to make a verdict to nine men. 

I tell you, gentlemen of the Convention, I do not be- 
lieve that, even in these United States, is the doctrine 
of Constitutional liberty more deeply engTafted than it 
is upon the soil of England, and, yet, notwithstanding 
that report in favor of this so-called reform, England 
stands to-day upon a verdict of twelve men, and in it 
she is followed by the most progressive, most populous, 
most prosperous, and most enlightened States of the 
American Union, and the American government itself. 
Ah, Mr. President, but these gentlemen that talk about 
reform, my friends, the reformers, have not the true 
metal of reform about them; it does not ring like the 
tocsin calling the people to awake. If it be true that 
this is a reform which is demanded, and if it be true 
that it ought to be done, because in the Congress of 
the United States, in the Legislature of Alabama, in a 
great national election, a majority of one decides all 
questions ; and, I believe, in looking over the list of cita- 
tions which they have made, they cite but one single in- 
stance where a majority of more than one is required, 
and that is in the United States Senate on the question 
of the ratification of a treaty between the United States 
and a foreign power, where it requires two-thirds; 
but if the majority rule is so good, if, by it, we can 
decide the question of who shall be the President of the 
United States, if, by it, we can decide what shall be 
the laws of this commonwealth and of our country, if, by 
it, we can decide what shall be the rule of our Supreme 
Courts, why don't they come up to the full measure 
of their duties? Why have you not the courage of your 
convictions, and come out and say that a majority of 
one on the jury shall decide the rights of property in 
Alabama? That does not sound like reform. If it is 
good to have nine to decide the case, it is better to 



39 

liavo seven. We know it because these gentlemen have 
said it, and we knew before thej said it, that in these 
other matters, a majority of one decides (questions, even 
to the election of a President of the United States. If 
it be such a great reform, why, gentlemen, do you not 
appl}^ it to criminal cases? Why do not you say that 
the jury shall have a right, by a majority of one, to de- 
termine thait a man's life, or his liberty, shall be taken? 
Oh, they reply, it is a different thing. Is it different? 
Do 3^ou know a man, gentlemen of the Convention, that 
will not defend his property with his life, and, if the 
man himself is so careless of his life, ithat he will de- 
fend his property with it, why should you be so cafeful 
of it as to take his property away by less than twelve, 
and yet retain the twelve to keep him out of the peni- 
tentiary, or away from the gallows? 

I submit to you, gentlemen of the Convention, if you 
adopt this proposition, another thing will happen. You 
absolutely destroy the chances for deliberation in the 
jury box. If a jury goes in the box, and they are di- 
vided in opinion, and the}' must be unanimous, those men 
will sit down and reason together, they will discuss the 
evidence, talk about the law as the court gave it to them, 
and, in a majority of cases, in the large majority of cases, 
they will find where the truth is, and declare it in their 
verdict ; but once say that nine men shall decide a case, 
and the}^ walk into a jury room, and the first thing is, 
"Let us take a vote and see who has a majority," and 
nine of the jurors say the plaintiff or the defendant 
should have the verdict, deliberation is gone, and you 
have what you seem to be hunting for, quick and speedy 
justice, Avithout sale, denial or delay, but you have not 
got it as the result of the deliberate conviction of the 
jury, as you ought to have it, if the laws are to be 
properly executed in this country. 

Now, gentlemen, the proposition of my learned friend 
from Greene (Mr. Coleman) is based upon another hy- 
pothesis. He says, and his view of it is, that if a man 
brings an action for damages against a corporation, 
the sympathy of the jury goes out to the plaintiff, and 
it is so strong that it will overcome (I don't mean that 
is his argument) , but I take it it would be so strong that 
it would overcome the bribe-bought juror, my friend, the 



40 

gentleman from Jefferson (Mr. Beddow) italks about, 
and so the gentleman from Greene puts it that in cases 
of tort a majority of nine shall not prevail. 

I say to you, Mr. President, and gentlemen of the 
Convention, if you go amongst the people of Alabama 
(and I tell you you have got to have a fight to get this 
Constitution adopted; you all know it and realize it), 
and let some man get up before the people of this 
State, that has the power of speech on the stump, and 
tell them that this Convention has passed a provision 
which absolutel.y ouarantees to the corporation a verdict 
of tvrelve men, but if a man sues you for your little forty 
acres of land here, nine men can take it away from 
you, — you cannot defend it on the stump, and you put 
your Constitution in peril. 

If, on the other hand, you leave out this proposition 
and adopt the proposition contained in the minority re- 
port of the committee, the same power lies in the hands 
of designing and unscrupulous men to go to the men 
who ov>n their little farms all over Alabama and say 
to them : "This Convention has done what it was pre- 
dicted it would do, it has tampered with the jury system 
of Alabama; it has put it in the hands of this fellow 
that has a mortgage on your property, to get it from 
you by a verdict of nine men, when the Constitution, 
since the dawn of time, has said twelve men," and that 
proposition would give you trouble, world without end, 
in securing the adoption of the Constitution. 

1 appeal to this Convention not to tamper with the 
bill of rights. I do not care if it is old. If the proposi- 
tion I submit to you does not appeal to you by 
reason of its virtue and its merit, God knows I do not 
ask you to vote for it by reason of its age ; but it is part 
and parcel of the rights reserved to the people, and I 
appeal to this Convention not to touch them, but to let 
them stand as they have stood since the dawn of Ala- 
bama's history, — the firm and unyielding bulwark of the 
people against oppression. 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON PREAMBLE 
AND DECLARATION OF RIGHTS. 



BY ITS CHAIRMAN- 



Mr. President: 

The Committee on Preamble and Declaration of 
Eights instructs me to report the Preamble and Decla- 
ration of Eights hereto attached for adoption by this 
Oonvention. The Committee has carefully examined 
and considered all of the ordinances referred to it, and 
has incorporated the principles of «ome of them in the 
article herewith reported. A large number of them have 
been rejected by the Committee because it was believed 
that the great and essential principles of liberty, em- 
bodied in the bill of rights, being, as they are, the crys- 
talization of the experience of centuries, should be pre- 
served, as far as possible, from change and innovation. 
The changes which have been made in the present arti- 
cle by the omission of certain parts thereof have been 
made because the omitted portions were not properly 
part and parcel of a solemn statement of the reserved 
rights of the people — to unequivocally declare which 
is the aim and purpose of the Bill of Eights of the Con- 
stitution of our Sftate. Some of the ordinances re- 
jected by the committee failed of adoption because it 
was evident that the object sought to be attained could 
be secured by legislative action and that, hence, they 
were not proper matter for Constitutional enactment. 
The few^ sections and parts of sections added by your 
committee, and not proposed by any ordinance referred 
to it, were adopted because in the judgment of the com- 
mittee they made more clear and specific, and gave 
greater emphasis to, those rights of the people which are 
above and beyond the general powers of government. 

All ordinances referred to the committee are here- 
with respectfully returned. 

The following are the material changes reported : 

The Preamble has been shortened merely with a view 
of conforming to the practice of recent conventions, all 
of which have adopted the shorter form of Preamble. 

To Section 5 of the Declaration of Eights the fol- 
lowing words have been added : "No law shall ever be 



42 

passed to curtail or restrain the liberty of ispeech or of 
the press." 

To Section 7 the following additions have been made : 
A provision fixing in the Oonsititution the right of the 
defendant to testify in his own behalf and, also, one 
permitting a motion by a defendant for a change of 
venue to be heard and determined in his absence. 

In Section 9 the named misdemeanors are stricken 
out and the words "In cases of misdemeanor'' inserted. 

There is added to Section 10 a provision that in cases 
fixed by law |the trial judge may discharge a jury with- 
out the consent of the defendant. 

In Section 13 the words "for libel" are inserted in 
the first line so as to permit the truth thereof to be 
given in evidence. 

Section 23 is changed by prohibiting the General As- 
sembly from granting any exclusive, as well as irre- 
vocable, special privileges or immunities, and provid- 
ing that all franchises, privileges and immunities shall 
be subject to revocation, alteration and amendment. 

There is added to Section 27 a provision requiring the 
General Assembly to define small arms and to regulate 
the bearing of the same. 

The word "right," as applied to suffrage, is stricken 
out and the word "privilege" inserted. 

Section 35 is stricken out as having no place in a Dec- 
laration of Eights. 

Section 38 is changed to Section 37, and also by 
striking out the prohibition against an educational or 
property qualification for suffrage. 

Section 38 is a new section prohibiting the exercise 
by one depai^ment of the government of any of the 
functions of either of the other departments thereof. 

Section 39 is retained as in the present Constitution, 
with the addition of a declaration that the rights re- 
tained by the people are excepted out of the general 
powers of government, and shall forever remain in- 
violate. 

Upon some of the sections of the Declaration of 
Kighits reported herewith, the members of the com- 
mittee are not unanimous, and the dissenting members 
will either submit minority reports, or reserve liberty of 
action when the article reported is taken up for con- 
sideration by the Convention. 

Tennent Lomax^ Chairman. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 921 037 6 



i 



